Tennis tournament heads to North Carolina

The men’s professional tennis tournament that once called New Haven home will move to Winston-Salem, N.C. this August, the U.S. Tennis Association and ATP World Tour announced last week.

The new tournament will be held on the campus of Wake Forest University from Aug. 21-27, the same week the Pilot Pen tournament was typically held. No title sponsor has been announced, but BB&T Bank, Hanes Brands and the Flow Companies have pledged their support, according to the report.

In November 2009, Pilot Pen announced it would no longer sponsor the annual mens’ and womens’ tournaments, traditionally held the final week before the U.S. Open. After a year of uncertainty over the future of professional tennis in New Haven, University President Richard Levin, Tournament Director Anne Worcester and Mayor John Destefano Jr. announced in October that the tournament would live on, but with some substantial tweaks. The new tournament, dubbed the New Haven Open at Yale, will debut next August as a womens-only competition, and rather than rely on a single title sponsor like Pilot Pen, the New Haven Open will have four “cornerstone” sponsors: Yale, Yale-New Haven Hospital, American Express and Aetna.